Our house is on fire. Join the resistance: Do no harm/take no shit. My idiosyncratic and confluent bricolage of progressive politics, the collaborative commons, next generation cognitive neuroscience, American pragmatism, de/reconstruction, dynamic systems, embodied realism, postmetaphysics, psychodynamics, aesthetics. It ain't much but it's not nothing.

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

May as well regress in this area as well, continuing our decline into 3rd world status. Fortunately the rest of the world will keep implementing this agenda. And the US will return to it in 4 years once we vote out our illegitimate (aka fake) notmyPresident. That is, if he isn't impeached before then.

France's new President Macron said to Putin's face that Russian media tried to interfere in the French election. This is what a truly strong President looks like, certainly not the Russian-controlled US (not my) President likely to be impeached and imprisoned for treason.

"Metatheorizing
can be done poorly and [...] adopt weak or inappropriate methods and
can assume unreflexive and narrow conceptual perspectives, and it can be
hidden within ideological positions that, for example, place
business-centric applied research over the long-term ethical needs of
communities. The post-modern critique of meta-perspectives has been
particularly insightful for uncovering the ideological commitments that
often go undeclared and unquestioned in big picture research."

I'm usually not crazy about kid acts, quite the contrary. But last night another kid showed incredible talent with this act that got Mel B's golden buzzer, putting her straight through to the live show.

My favorite performance of the night. She qualifies for the next round with an 89.7 average score. Not only is she technically superb but she so far is the best at bringing emotional content to the dance.

Setting
aside the article on neoliberalism, it is definitely one of the show's
major themes. The origin of the entire plot is Walter getting cancer and
not having the healthcare he should have to pay for it. Hence he's left
with no better choice then to do what he did. It's an obvious statement
on a system that is so broken that it could care less for some of its
best citizens, dedicated teachers.

See this article detailing the continuing losses for progressives in the Dem Party. Are progressives ready yet to admit that voters still rightly think the Dem Party is
corrupt to the core? And the possibility that it is at least in part
why progressives are losing, as they are seen as part of that corrupt
establishment? That maybe still clinging to the Party by trying to
reform it might not be a winning strategy?

"Despite Tononi’s bold claim that 'consciousness is one and the same
thing as integrated information' (2008, p. 232), integrated information
does not seem sufficient for consciousness. On the one hand, even simple
systems have some degree of integrated information, so the equation
of consciousness and integrated information implies that even simple
systems, such as a photodiode, have some degree of consciousness. On the
other hand, complex digital computers can possess a high amount of
integrated information. Yet neither system is conscious (at least the attribution of consciousness to such systems seems highly implausible) (see Searle 2013). As Ned Block (2009) points out, the integrated information theory fails to distinguish between intelligence, in the sense of being able to solve complex problems by integrating multiple sources of information, and consciousness, in the sense of sentience or felt awareness (phenomenal consciousness). Since integrated information does not seem sufficient for consciousness—let alone identical to it—the presence or absence of integrated information cannot be the crucial mark of whether a state is conscious or not conscious."

Monday, May 29, 2017

And what we can do about it. This video describes the difference between markets and capitalism. The core of capitalism is an employer/employee relationship with underlying conflict, tension, anger and resentment. Why? Because the employer's intention is to make the most profit out of labor's work while paying them the least amount possible. The worker must produce more than he gets and doesn't share in the surplus. That's how capitalism is intentionally designed.

One solution is the workers get all the surplus they create e.g. via a cooperative model, where the employers and the employees are all in the same boat and share equitably. Any business can be changed into a co-op by giving the workers ownership and control of it. They democratically decide how to distribute the surplus. Also co-op workers are local to the area of the business, so see the immediate effects of their business on the community and therefore take greater care to preserve the environment and social relations of that community. If automation eliminates the need for half the work, then let the workers work half as much and share in the more efficient surplus created by that technology. This allows for more self and community development, thereby increasing quality of life.

See the article here. Sales
are declining in part due to competition from other stores that cost
less. So WF is taking drastic measures, bringing in the Walmart types to
save the day, exactly what it purported to
be against. The WF simple-minded model that "if we just think right
with good intentions and an integral model then the rest will take care
of itself" is proving no match for the realities of capitalism. Hence WF
is ripe for a capitalistic takeover that will revamp the entire chain
along its usual vulture path.

Good description starting around 1:15. It's something below conscious radar for most of us white people. People of color live in an entirely different world, even the schools they go to. Learning about and understanding the phenomenon at least gives us a check to think before we say stupid shit like: "If these poor black people just applied themselves like I did then they wouldn't be in that situation."

And if Kushner goes down so will T-Swamp, who had to know of this. Kushner met with the Russian Ambassador (aka spy) during the transition (December of 2016) to set up a secret back-channel of communication with the Kremlin (starting around 0:18 in the video below). T-Swamp Tweeted that it's fake new, of course. And even the Secretary of Homeland Security sees no problem with this! The problem is that it's illegal and borders on, if not outright crosses that border, into treason.

Once again there are some who get their panties in a was over the word kennilingus, most recently in this FB thread. I first responded with two Maher videos here and here, emphasizing liberal hypersensitivity over trivialities instead of focusing on more important issues. Then I posted this:

I've
spent a lot of time in the past not only criticizing Wilber but
appreciating him. And I do so by being well-informed of his work. This
can be verified by anyone with the time to read the Ning forum. So if
one wants to put me in a box of just hating the guy, they're 1) wrong and 2) likely within the kennilingus cult.

As
to the word kennilingus, which gets hyper-sensitive people's panties in
a wad, I now typically use it to refer to Wilber's work generally.
i.e., Kenni's language. Words have different meanings and connotations
depending on context. Next time you read the word put it in context. Or
pull on your panties. Whatever gets you off.

Of
course Wilber is still referenced in this forum, as his work has much
value. But he is but one of several sources used here and is no longer
the main source for me and some others. However if one wants to join the
academic coterie in the US, or be accepted by Wilber, then he still
must be the top dog. But that is far from the case at CIIS or at
Integral Review. The article I referenced from the latter on
syntegrality doesn't have even one mention of him, nor was it needed.

I'm
personally at a point where for me syntegrality no longer needs to be
propped up with him. These days I much prefer the orientating
generalization of the collaborative commons as the base of the emerging
next wave of evolution, spiritual and otherwise.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Continuing the last post, see BNC's platform here and compare with the Congressional Progressive Caucus agenda. This is what we the people told us they want, so if we organize and disseminate these values and ideals progressives will take back a majority of governmental seats in the US, from local to national, and restore American values back into the system.

But no longer is. Hartmann interviews a Republican running for Arkansas' 3rd district, Robb Ryerse, who wants to take the Party back to what it used to be: Progressive! Hartmann opens with the Eisenhower Republican platform, which expanded social security, expanded unions, built the interstate highway system, hospitals and schools and wanted equal pay. Ryerse's platform includes: meaningful tax reform, meaning eliminating tax loopholes for the wealthiest and biggest corps; liberty and opportunity for all people, meaning putting people ahead of Party politics by providing healthcare and college for all; responsible government spending that does the most good for the most people, meaning spending on healthcare, college and infrastructure instead of tax breaks for the wealthiest or bailouts for Wall Street. He sounds not at all like Republicans of today.

He's a throwback to when there were actually progressives in that Party that could work with progressives in the Dem Party to get things done for we the people. Now it's the regressive Wall Street whores in both Parties that have taken over and want no part in a progressive populist platform that we the people want, despite Party affiliation. Remember that T-Swamp won on a populist message to drain the Washington swamp, a large part of why he won. A segment of those who believed him are waking up to the fact that he lied and they want a genuine populist agenda. That's why perhaps this guy will be more the standard bearer on his Party. And the US can return to a progressive nation where both Parties have that agenda and work together to get it done.

PS: He is the first Republican candidate endorsed by Brand New Congress, which is devoted to running progressives to replace the establishment corporatists in Congress by implementing this people's platform, which all endorsed candidates must support.

The Pope does it again. When asked about Muslim terrorism he turns the question on its head and says terrorism's root lies in capitalism. People resort to terrorism as a last resort because they are abused by a greedy system that not only doesn't provide opportunity but intentionally thwarts it. It's the God of money that is the problem, not religion.

See this article for the details. Large US companies like Ford, GM and Chrysler have moved half of their production job to Canada because their single-payer healthcare system lowers those costs from $15,000 per employee to about $1,000. Other estimates are not as glaring, but still about 1/3 less in Canada. Company executives also use that system because the care is good and wait times are not a problem. Canada's system works, which is why it has survived through administrations from both sides of the aisle. So next time a US Republican tells you how shitty Canada's healthcare system is, just ask a US corporation.

I'm not crazy about the postmodern (pomo) characterization in #2 of the first 10. On the one hand is the
critique of pomo not being able to take a metanarractive stand due to
situational considerations, yet taking a metanarrative stand that the
pomo stand is right. Wilber might call
that its performative contradiction. But in another sense, at least in
regard to #2, pomo is rightly taking a better, metamodern stand against
the usual dichotomy more often found in modernism.

At
the end of the 2nd article he asks a lot of questions about
metamodernism that need to be answered. One in particular I highlight is
indicative that the field is not set in stone based on any particular
interpretation. And that it is pointless to argue
that if one doesn't agree with any particular interpretation then of
course they just can really be metamodern. The broader integral
community is learning this, even if there are still some dogmatic
islanders.

"Disagreements between metamodernists
still abound and will continue to be a topic of conversation online and
in academic journals."

Note that online conversation
is a valid means of exploration, not just academic journals. Yes, the
former doesn't have the strict sort of peer review of the latter. But
the former does indeed have peer validation of the peer to peer sort,
just as useful and worthy. Which is in fact one of the principles
Abramson details.

Another
interesting point is that many in the art world are already displaying
some of these metamodern principles, even being ignorant of them or
identifying as modern or postmodern. One doesn't have to intellectually
elucidate or accept these principles to be examples of them. And one
certainly does not have to speak metalingus to be part of the
phenomenon. And one certainly does not exemplify the phenomenon just by
rote learning the principles and espousing them.

Continuing this post, here's 5 more of Abramson's principles. Again see the link for details, necessary to get the full import of the bullet points. I know, if you're a Swamper the bullet points are sufficient for a deficient attention span.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

So Kurtz at Fox reported the facts revealed in a recent poll indicating T-Swamp's approval ratings are way down. But Fox viewers inundated him with hate mail saying he's a liberal and just more fake news. Kurtz laments that people no longer believe the media reports facts and wonders how this all happened. Look no further than Fox So-Called News, which has been the leader in fake news all these years and programmed viewers to mistrust all other sources of information. The chickens have come home to roost so that Fox can no longer report actual facts.

Yes, he's too dumb to realize that he did it but he did it nonetheless. He revealed what Republicans believe, that one's circumstances are completely determined by one's attitude. If you're poor it's your own damned fault. All this really reveals is the simple mindedness of this absurd premise. He said:

"You take somebody that has the right mindset, you take everything from
them and put them on the street and I guarantee in a little while
they’ll be right back up there. And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can
give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back
down to the bottom.”

See the article here for the details. Just the bullet points follow. While I agree with Reich I have serious doubts that the Party has any intention of doing this, as they have yet to recognize these as problems that need fixing. (That is, with the exception of number 4, which can't do it alone.) And it seems the Party has in fact continually been ignoring these suggestions given the newly elected heads of the DNC and CA Party, not to mention losing some key races already. His number 8 recognized the Party might not do this, so suggests one or more strong progressive national organizations that demand the Party to do so.

1. Overhaul the DNC2. Embrace populism3. Mobilize, energize and educate the base4. Expose Trump as a fraud5. Focus on 2018 now6. Look to the state and local level7. Protect groups threatened by Trump8. Failing all else, look outside the party

See this article for details. An excerpt showing how Rifkin's work is influencing the world, except for the regressive US.

"On February 7, the European Union unveiled its 'Smart Europe' plan
influenced by Rifkin’s work, which outlines how the 350 regions of
Europe will start building out the road maps to transition into a new
infrastructure of 5G internet, renewable energy, and automated
driverless transport internet, all riding on top of an internet of
things platform. Regions in the north of France, Luxembourg, and the
Netherlands have already begun their transition over the last few years.
There’s a similar plan taking place in China: After Premier Li Keqiang
read Rifkin’s seminal book, The Third Industrial Revolution, he made
Rifkin’s strategies core to the country’s 13th Five-Year plan that was
announced last March, and includes billions in renewable energy
investment by 2020."

As one successful example, the Hauts-de-France region in France began working with Rifkin in 2012 and has since transformed itself per the video below.

Friday, May 26, 2017

From an article in that German paper written by Klaus Brinkbaumer. He has the Biggest Loser down to a T(Swamp).

"Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. He does not possess the requisite intellect and does not understand the significance of the office he holds nor
the tasks associated with it. He doesn't read. He doesn't bother to
peruse important files and intelligence reports and knows little about
the issues that he has identified as his priorities. His decisions are
capricious and they are delivered in the form of tyrannical decrees.

"He is a man free of morals. As has been
demonstrated hundreds of times, he is a liar, a racist and a cheat. I
feel ashamed to use these words, as sharp and loud as they are. But if
they apply to anyone, they apply to Trump.
And one of the media's tasks is to continue telling things as they are:
Trump has to be removed from the White House. Quickly. He is a danger
to the world."

The Republican Party, that is. He shows a clip of Sanders questioning Mulvaney and then says Mulvaney is outright lying about cuts to Medicaid. He continues that his Party is continually lying about other provisions of their health(don't)care bill as well. Perhaps the GOP thinks because T-Swamp gets away with lying all the time they can as well. Not to Scarborough and the rest of the American people with at least half a brain. He said: "My Party is going straight to hell." They've already been there for some time though. You tell them Joe.

On the Swamp(don't)care bill. She has experience as a patient advocate on all forms of healthcare insurance, both before and after Obamacare. She has real concerns about States putting people with preexisting conditions in high risk pools and recounts her husband's experience. It's obvious she knows a lot more than her representative on the topic, who has no good response. Instead he invites her to his office to discuss it further, but given that she's tried to contact his office on several previous occasions with no response we can pretty much assume it's an empty gesture.

The good Senator keeps asking the Director of the Office of Management and Budget why billionaires deserve a huge tax break via the repeal of the estate tax and the latter keeps prevaricating and not answering the question. Bravo to Sanders for fighting for the people and not the 1%.

What a narcissistic bully. And after he pushes the guy out of the way he postures like he's the center of attention. This is not only The Worst (not my)President in history but a most disgusting human being as well.

Sigrid on Corden last night performing the title song from her debut EP. The song starts with a rather typically boring verse and melody, but the chorus gets innovative and interesting. Plus there's a third change that's also interesting. She also starts dancing and playing with her voice making for a fun performance.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Not surprising that Pruitt would make a false statement on the topic. Pruitt said: "Over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming." So the scientists in charge of the satellite data said he's full of shit. To the contrary: "Satellite temperature measurements do not support the claim of a ‘leveling off of warming’ over the past two decades." See the link for the supporting scientific evidence. Once again, scientific facts prove the deniers wrong. But of course that won't stop them from pulling lies out of their crusty asses.

A progressive Democrat on Tuesday won the 9th Assembly District special election in Long Island, a district that T-Swamp won in the last election. And it was due in large part to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, the state teacher's union and Working Families Party strongly supporting this progressive candidate. Dems can win in T-Swamp country if, like here, they pursue a progressive agenda. Hopefully the Dem Party will take notice.

Continuing this post, my
sense of reading the Foreword is that we learn from observing
ecological systems in nature and align an economy within those
principles and parameters. "Without material growth" refers to the
notion that we don't need ever increasing economic growth to support our
currently wasteful consumption habits. Part of living ecologically is
understanding the limits of growth, economic or consumptive, and
modifying accordingly.

I'd
add that this also applies to those in the integral community obsessed
with endless growth of complexity as indicative of evolution. There
comes a point when further complexification divorces from its ecological
base and strays into abstract metaphysical territory. Hence my emphasis
instead on developmental synplexity, the kind that retains its
embodied, embedded, enactive and extended interactivity.

See this long-term study of 55,502 patients over 13.5 years. Chocolate intake reduced the incidence of atrial fibrillation (afib) 10-20%. The rates depended on chocolate consumption: 1-3 (1 oz) servings per month 10%; 1 serving per week 17%; 2-6 servings per week 20%; 1 or more serving per day 16%. For women the best dose was once per week showing a 21% reduction; for men it was 2-6 servings per week showing a 23% reduction. However it was recommended that dark chocolate was better than milk chocolate, as it contains more of the chemical elements responsible for this effect.

Fritjof Capra writes the Foreword to this new book. An excerpt of that Foreward:

"The basic pattern of organization of a living system is the
network. Ecosystems are understood in terms of food webs, i.e. networks
of organisms; organisms are networks of cells, and cells are networks of
molecules. More precisely, a living system is a self-generating
network. Each component of the network helps to transform and replace
other components, and thus the entire network continually creates, or
recreates, itself.

"According to this systemic conception of life,
neither the economy nor society can be understood as collections of
objects, but only in terms of relationships between subjects. They
cannot survive in an atomized state any more than an organism can
survive in fragments. Moreover, the fact that the basic pattern of
organization of all living systems is the network implies that an
economy will be truly alive — flexible and capable of creative
adaptations to changing circumstances — only if it is organized as a
network, composed of smaller living networks and integrated into larger
social and ecological networks. Indeed, Jakobsen argues that a new
ecological economy might be best developed from a network of
decentralized and globally interconnected ecovillages.

"A living
system is materially and energetically open and always operates far from
equilibrium. There is a continual flow of energy and matter through the
system. All living systems need energy and food to sustain themselves,
and all living systems produce waste. But in nature, organisms form
communities, the ecosystems, in which the waste of one species is food
for the next, so that matter cycles continually through the ecosystem.

Yes he did. President Duterte of the Philippines and cronies have killed over 7,000 people involved with drugs, no trial, no defense. And the Swamp praised him as doing a good job. This is his idea of how to handle the drug problem. Not to worry, because Attorney General Sessions is not that far off from wanting to implement this sort of policy. Meanwhile, on the same call the Swamp revealed top secret intelligence about our nuclear submarines in the area. JFC.

It's the biggest transfer of wealth to the already wealthy in the history of the world. See, the Swamp is the biggest and the best at something. Same with the health(don't)care bill. Reverse Robin Hood to the rescue of those poor, poor rich people who just can't get enough from those who already don't have enough. I'd try to shame T-Swamp and his critters but it's obvious that their moral sociopathy knows no such emotions like shame or compassion.

It's very clear in this testimony. DeVos is given a specific example of the Lighthouse Christian Academy, which receives federal vouchers but will not allow admission to students of LGBT families. DeVos is asked repeatedly if such schools should receive federal vouchers and she keeps coming back to if that's what parents and the States want then by all means it should be so. Sexual orientation or identity is fair game for discrimination to those claiming freedom of choice with our money. We don't get a choice in paying for this discrimination.

Of course T-Swamp and his critters can't do math, since the budget proposal contains this error. Simple explanation: the Swamp is an idiot. A former Treasury Secretary said this kind of mistake would fail a student in an introductory economic course. That's T-Swamp all right. An idiot that has no idea what he's doing and is the Biggest Failure in History.

Yes, get the facts from Real News, which reports real facts. This budget will contain the biggest tax cut in history for the wealthy and a massive increase in military spending. Meanwhile it deeply cuts funds to social spending like Medicaid, welfare, disability benefits, veteran services, student loans and childcare, to name a few. Here we see clearly the morality of T-Swamp: Further enrich the wealthy on the backs of everyone else. How Christian of him. Just what Jesus would do, right? NOT!
Also see Stiglitz on this budget.

And it isn't good. 23 million people will lose coverage. States can take away pre-existing condition coverage. They can reinstate lifetime caps on how much will be spent on your illness. If pre-existing condition coverage is available, the premiums will skyrocket beyond affordability. Premiums for the elderly will be 4 times higher, again reducing coverage for this demographic.

However it will reduce the deficit by $119 billion over the next decade and the premiums will be lower. However the prices come down for healthy people who have far less comprehensive coverage, and because far fewer sick people will have access to coverage. As to reducing the deficit, it does so by reducing federal coverage support to low and middle-income families, again reducing access to the most vulnerable. Also they are cutting $800 billion from Medicaid. However most of that money saved will go to tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, with just a small portion going to deficit reduction.

This is the reality of what you get with Republicans. Don't buy the spin; understand the facts.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Pocan is a representative from Wisconsin and familiar with how the voucher education program has been an abysmal failure there. So he questions our new Secretary of Education hack about it and she never answers any of his pertinent questions. Instead she keeps emphasizing parent choice but not whether that choice has produced results. I guess it's ok if parents choose to dumb down their children if they want? But shouldn't parents at least have the choice of being informed on the performance of the schools they send their children to? You know, so that they have the freedom to choose the better schools over the worse ones through competition?

"Human development is all about human freedoms: freedom to realize the full potential of every human life, not just of a few, nor of most, but of all lives in every corner of the world—now and in the future. Such universalism gives the human development approach its uniqueness."

From the Overview:

"The human development approach shifted the development discourse from pursuing material opulence to enhancing human well-being, from maximizing income to expanding capabilities, from optimizing growth to enlarging freedoms. It focused on the richness of human lives rather than on simply the richness of economies, and doing so changed the lens for viewing development results (box 2)."

Once again he points out all of the Biggest Swamp's campaign lies that are confirmed in his budget proposal. It's just a huge robbing of the poor and working families to the already rich and powerful. And it's right there in plain sight in the budget for all to see, if only they had the eyes or brains to see it. We must remember that budgets are a statement of moral values. Compare with The People's Budget by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Now tell me who has the moral high ground here.

Hartmann provides clips of former President Eisenhower, a Republican and former 5-star general in the Army, on how war takes food out of our mouths and education away from our children. He also warned us about the growing military-industrial complex, which has come to pass and will be further promoted by T-Swamp and the Republicans at our expense, meaning all the cuts to public programs in the new budget. Hartmann rightly says that he was the last Republican President with any integrity.

Fortunately he gets us to laugh at the horrors proposed in this latest budget, some of which he details. Ironically, the budget hits Swamp voters the hardest, but they'll never believe it being so programmed against factual evidence.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Yep, for the first time in 21 years this is the case. With the popular O'Reilly gone the door has been opened and Maddow now sits on top of this ratings class. Hopefully it's a sign that at least the majority are becoming more inclined toward the truth in news programming.

He left the CIA the day of the inauguration, January 20. He testified in the House Intelligence Committee that during his tenure “I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that
revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S.
persons involved in the Trump campaign. I was concerned because of known Russian efforts
to suborn such individuals. And it raised questions in my mind again
whether or not the Russians were able to gain the cooperation of those
individuals.”

Yes, there have been 3 known incidents already, not to mention those that likely happened and have been covered up. Oh, but that simply can't happen we're told, the builders have taken every precaution for the safety of the people and the environment. Yeah, right. We'll keep hearing of more leaks and spills through alternative media, certainly not through lamestream corporate media.

As California goes, so goes the nation. And even in CA the establishment Dems refuse to accede power to the progressives that represent the majority of those who identify as Democrat, as well as the majority of voters in the US. The corporate Dems will give lip service to progressive populist issues but when the rubber hits the road they inevitable kowtow to their corporate and Wall Street masters. They may call for Party 'unity' but it's really just more lying spin to keep their status quo and keep the corporate funding (aka bribery) rolling in.

And of course they keep using the scare tactic that if progressives form a third Party they will just be handing all future elections to the conservatives. Remember who won in France's Presidential election, and that he went independent of the 2 major parties. And remember who won in the US, claiming to not be part of the 2-party swamp (even though he lied). The time has come for progressives to organize outside the Dem Party, as they really do have the majority of the US behind them.

Good compilation of such town halls from Yale Climate Connections. Such activism is sorely needed in these dire times, and we the people are getting busy. They rightly give deserved credit to the Indivisible movement for organizing a lot of that activism.

Monday, May 22, 2017

She lays out the details of the Swamp budget proposal to gut public education. I guess swamp critters are not yet stupid enough that they need some extra help. Plus this budget will just produce more of the same to keep voting against their own, and our country's, best interests. The agenda is plain as day for those of us that still have a bit of brain and heart left.

Wow, Clarence Thomas broke ranks with his conservative brethren in joined the progressives in the Court ruling that two districts in North Carolina gerrymandered along racial lines, a clear violation of the Constitution. The other 3 conservatives agreed in part and dissented in part, with Gorsuch sitting this one out. The entire opinion is linked in the article.

Yep, the Swamp also tried to obstruct justice by asking the national intelligence director and the director of the National Security Agency to make public statements refuting then FBI Director Comey's assertions of an investigation into Russian corruption. Both of course refused. The treasonous plot thickens by the day.

Also remember that in building that business they used a lot more of our public resources than any individual. So their taxes should be higher to pay their fair share of that use which helped in their success. But that's one thing conservatives never consider, thinking it's a right to use those resources that someone else paid for. It's theft if they don't pay for it accordingly. But stealing from the poor to pay the rich has always been part of their ideology.

Wilbur Ross actually praised them, saying he saw no sign of protests when he and T-Swamp visited there. He failed to mentioned that Saudis behead protesters. It is one of the most repressive countries in the world headed by autocrats, so we can see why both he and the Swamp love that country and want to turn the US into that sort of regime.

T-Swamp will propose to cut Medicaid by $800 billion, which he promised not to cut. This will slash 10 million low-income people from coverage. There will also be cuts to food stamps and social security. He is proving on a daily basis that he truly is the Biggest Liar in the World. I suppose he has to be the best at something.

In this FB post, commenting on this article, he said that the Party establishment still hasn't learned from past elections, including the last one. They are still refusing to fight for the things progressives, and the majority of the country, want: single-payer universal healthcare, free public higher education, higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for public programs, and campaign finance reforms. They think that they can just be anti-T-Swamp. How did that work out for you last time idiots? The Party is lost and beyond repair.

"We should distrust our automatic settings and rely more on manual mode when attempting to resolve practical moral disagreements. So far, so palatable. But where does this lead? I believe it favors consequentialist approaches to moral problem solving, ones aimed solely at promoting good consequences, rather than deontological approaches aimed at figuring out who has which rights and duties, where these are regarded as constraints on the promotion of good consequences. More specifically, I believe that reliance on manual mode favors act consequentialism at the level of first principles and something resembling rule consequentialism in everyday practice. As private individuals, we should nearly always respect the conventional moral rules, but in establishing those rules as voters and policy makers we should aim simply for the best long-term consequences."

Saturday, May 20, 2017

The far right, like T-Swampers, are using the same tactics as ISIS. And like ISIS they are using online services like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to spread their hatred, racism and xenophobia. Breitbart and InfoWars are a few of the more popular outlets. Their goal is to attract the the disaffected, those who have little to no education, employment opportunities or training, thus severely limiting their life opportunities. They are ripe to fill the void of their lives by blaming everyone else for their situation, incited by violent rhetoric that leads them in that direction. Homegrown ISIS right in our midst.

First stop, Saudi Arabia, where the Swamp wants to unite the Arab world by giving a speech on radical Islam! And the speech is being drafted by Steven Miller, the guy who influenced the first Muslim ban! Yeah, something tells me this winning combination is just what we need to bring peace. Things don't look much better for the Israel or the Pope visits.

The main factors that support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity,
honesty, health, income and good governance. Six key variables of
happiness: income, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on
in times of trouble, generosity, freedom and trust, with the latter
measured by the absence of corruption in business and government. The
full report on various countries can be found here. The top 10. Just maybe the US can learn something from these countries? Nah...

Good New Rule on how all this superhero shit in media trains us to not take responsibility for ourselves, instead hoping someone with great powers will come to our rescue. It is basically inculcating us into passive acceptance that we don't have the power to change our lives. Hence why T-Swamp was so popular, as only he could fix it all for us. He even told us he could.

Friday, May 19, 2017

See this report in which the Biggest Loser told the Russians: "I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” This came from notes taken inside the Oval Office that were circulated as the official account of the meeting.

This is part of my exploration of the fold in this IPS thread. Bruce and I had this conversation today.

Bruce: Given Bryant's appeal to autopoiesis, a comparative look at Bryant and Thompson might be worthwhile.

Me: Bryant includes Brown's unmarked space as one example of the real excess beyond our access. In the beginning of Thompson's video he mentions Buddhist emptiness, but only in the context of relational dependent arising.

Bruce: Wilber uses Brown too, but in a more Idealist fashion, of course.

Me: It doesn't appear he [Thompson] includes this excess beyond relations. And yet Bryant has lately turned into a correlationist.

Bruce: With his fold model?

Me: Even before that.

Bruce: Maybe a weak correlationist, reading it as co-relation?

Me: Seems that way.

Bruce: That's in line with Buddhist emptiness (in one of its iterations)

Me: That's Thompson's pitch.

Bruce: I think Bryant may not grok how much he skirts around a Buddhist view.

Which includes Comey's firing, asking Comey to drop the Flynn investigation and revealing classified info to the Russians in the White House. Sanders puts this in the context of T-Swamp's man crush on Putin. Both are oligarchic authoritarians, their common love bond. Hence T-Swamp's daily moves toward transforming the US into a Russia-like dictatorship. How the Congress, the FBI and the special prosecutor proceed in this investigation will determine if we are to retain any semblance of democracy in the US.

Continuing the last post, Bitbol
agrees with Thompson that conscious experience of something is
prerequisite to studying something scientifically. And this prerequisite
is neither a purely subjective nor objective affair, but an
"inextricably united experience-of-a-world out of which the usual
duality are differentiated" (17). Thereafter he discusses
neurophenomenology.

I
came upon this Michel Bitbol talk on 'pure experience.' It goes along
with Thompson's section on the primacy of consciousness in this
post. But are they the same, different, or some combination? There are
also some suggested readings in the description below the video. One of those references is Bitbol's paper "Is consciousness primary?" The abstract:

"Six
arguments against the view that conscious experience derives from a
material basis are reviewed. These arguments arise from epistemology,
phenomenology, neuropsychology, and philosophy of quantum mechanics. It
turns out that any attempt at proving that conscious experience is
ontologically secondary to material objects both fails and brings
out its methodological and existential primacy. No
alternative metaphysical view is espoused (not even a variety
of Spinoza’s attractive double-aspect theory). Instead, an
alternative stance, inspired from F. Varela’s neurophenomenology, is
advocated."

Therein T-Swamp also asked Comey to imprison reporters, not just back off the Flynn investigation. Meanwhile, cowardly Republicans are being complicit in this obstruction by avoiding the issue altogether.

In this piece it notes that the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee wrote a letter in November of last year to the T-Swamp transition team warning of Flynn's involvement with Turkey. Pence was heading the transition team. The letter was confirmed received by the campaign. Despite Pence's denials he knew about this when he claimed he did not. He's going down with the Swamp too, because their whole Administration is the Biggest Swamp in the History of the World. Heh, just using T-Swamp's own rhetoric against him.

This article discusses a Reuters story that said the T-Swamp campaign had "at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race” with Russia. This despite the Swamp denying any contact whatsoever. The article provides the details. A treason charge and impeachment are well on their way.

Colbert continues about this topic. The White House is sending memos to NATO on how to make presentations to the Swamp given his notoriously short attention span and lack of adult comprehension. It's amazing that the not just the US but the rest of the world now has to cater to a spoiled child-King.

Warren notes that Secretary Mnuchin, along with the (notmy)President, supported a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. The original act separated the type of banks that loaned money from those that did speculative investment. It's demise was a direct cause of the financial meltdown. So Mnuchin replies that he never supported the original Act but does support this purportedly new one because it does not have that separation. Needless to say, Warren is aghast and calls him out repeatedly over this sorry excuse of a new Act that not only does nothing to prevent another financial crisis but to the contrary encourages yet another one. Apparently the new Act just uses the same name as the old one to give a false impression that it's doing something to solve the problem while doing the opposite.

Good article on what Dem pollsters have found on the issue. A significant % of former Obama voters either voted for the Swamp, someone else like the Green Party, or sat out the election. Why? Dem economic policies favored the wealthy and not the lower classes. For some it was more a matter of voting against Clinton, who was rightly perceived as being a Wall Street lackey. So the pollsters concluded that Dems need to be better at messaging to this demographic.

Yeah, but they also have to be sincere about it with actual policy implementation. It does no good to say the words is we know you don't believe them. Clinton talked the talk and we didn't believe her. What the Dems really need is to elect actual progressives with a proven track record over history of walking the talk. They had that chance with Sanders and they did everything to thwart him. Same with the new DNC head, muscling out the progressive Ellison and installing the same kind of corporate Dem in Perez we don't trust. Dems need to get real about this or get out of the way.

Here's Reich FB post on this article. The Swamp's entire history is one of being a con man. He screwed over contractors, business partners and creditors while violating laws constantly. His bankruptcies mounted to the point that no American banks would do business with him anymore, so he sought out loans from Russian banks. "Over the years, Trump has been the focus of investigations on housing
discrimination, bribery, corruption, dealings with the mob, misleading
earnings reports, fraud, and improper campaign contributions, and sexual
predation."

So it's no surprise he continues to operate this way in the White House and is destroying the good name of that high office. Let's hope that the Republicans have the moral constitution to prosecute this most fetid of all Swamps.

"Donald Trump is spectacularly bad at being president. Maybe the
most extreme allegations about him are true: he is a Russian asset,
compromised, taking orders from Moscow. He definitely is hiding all
sorts of information about his finances. Regardless, it is clear he is
wildly incompetent with no interest in even trying to understand his
current job or the rules that govern it. Or maybe, Donald Trump is just
an idiot. This week on Intercepted, investigative journalist Marcy
Wheeler and The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald analyze the latest insanity
emanating from the White House. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tim
Weiner and Intercept writer Trevor Aaronson discuss the firing of James
Comey and debate his FBI legacy. And Palestinian author and journalist
Rula Jebreal explains why President Trump is going to Saudi Arabia and
Israel on his first international trip."

It turns out that ousted FBI Director Comey wrote and circulated a memo on a 2/14/17 meeting with T-Swamp wherein the later asked Comey to quit investigating former National Security Adviser Flynn. That is of course obstruction of justice. This was after a previous meeting on 1/27/17 where T-Swamp asked Comey to pledge his loyalty during the Russian investigation, again obstruction of justice. Will the Republicans investigate this? Sure they will (not).

Following up on the last post, this article is more of a layman's introduction to neurophenomenology. It's only about a 15-minute easy read. If one wants to get geeky like me they can watch the previous video and read some of the references in the bibliography.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Evan Thompson, professor of philosophy, University of British Columbia,
delivers the keynote address for the Mind & Emptiness conference
held at Dartmouth April 28 & 29, 2017. LECTURE BEGINS AT 6min.51sec. It's my preferred approach to the topic, along with Damasio, Lakoff and a few others. The
outlined topics: the primacy of consciousness; the problem with
physicalism; not quite panpsychism; the primacy of embodiment;
neurophenomenology.

Talk about opposite world. Greg Palast did a detailed investigative report on Kansas Secretary of State Kobach's Interstate Cross-Check program. That program purged 1.1 million from the voter roles in the last election. E.g., T-Swamp won by about 10,700 votes in Michigan, yet some 50,000 people of color were purged from voting there. So in typical fashion T-Swamp appoints him to lead a new 'voter integrity' commission to investigate voter fraud, when in fact the opposite is true: Koback is the fraud. Without such suppression the Swamp never would have won.

Yes, the President can declassify intelligence. But as noted before, this is typically done with consultation with the intelligence community for specific purposes. T-Swamp's cavalier treatment of the intelligence has caused other countries to withhold sharing intelligence with the US if it's going to be in the hands of such an idiot. And still the Republicans will not move on impeaching this travesty.

NATO is well aware of the Swamp's childish developmental level and is preparing accordingly. This clip provides quotes on just how they are preparing. What does this say about the US, that we'd elect a petulant child as President? And just a reminder for those Bernie Bros that refused to vote for Clinton and who tipped the election. NATO would not be preparing this way for her.

To the Russians, in the Oval Office, with only Russian media to report. Seems we found the White House leaker. Yes, it's 'legal' for the President to do so, but typically it would be with full consultation of the Security Council with a strategic purpose. But T-Swamp did so out of pure narcissism and endangered the source of the intelligence as well as the operation by giving information that could easily lead to that source and operation. He's not only an idiot but a traitor.

This is her perfect score Rumba, which followed her perfect score jive. And yet she was voted off last night while that clumsy baseball dude goes to the finals? It's not just that they give equal weight to the ignorant public's vote, which is bad enough. But it's also the judges fault, giving Simone less than perfect scores most of the time because they hold her to a higher standard. Meanwhile, those dancers with less expectations get inflated scores. If it weren't for all the excellent dancing I wouldn't watch this corrupt popularity contest.

Here's another recent article on the parity of prejudice among liberals
and conservatives. However:

"There’s an argument to be made that
conservative intolerance does more harm than liberal intolerance, as it
targets more vulnerable people. Consider the earlier list of groups
maligned by liberals and conservatives. Rich people, Christians, men,
whites and the police would generally seem to have more power today than
immigrants, gays, blacks, poor people and goths."

More:

"Robbie Sutton, a psychologist at the University of Kent in
England, presented preliminary findings at SPSP that touch on the issue
of which intolerance is more justifiable. He found that people who
endorsed denialist conspiracy theories about climate change were more
likely than those who endorsed warmist conspiracy theories to want to
censor, surveil and punish climate scientists, whereas warmists were
more likely than denialists to want to punish and surveil climate change
skeptics. But are these sentiments equally harmful? Many people would
say that’s a subjective question, but it’s hard to ignore the evidence,
for instance, that Exxon has hidden its knowledge of climate change for
years, and the fact that that the current Republican administration has
placed new restrictions on Environmental Protection Agency scientists.
Who is more vulnerable, and backed by scientific evidence: Exxon or
environmental researchers?"

Yes, it's an intentional misspelling indicative of the High Court's usual rulings in favor of corporations over people. It will continue to do so with their new corporatist Gorsuch. They did however get this one right in refusing to hear the challenge against the 4th Circuit Appeals Court decision that overturned the North Carolina voter suppression legislation. The 4th Circuit found the NC law acted “with almost surgical precision” to disenfranchise black voters. So that ruling stands, defeating NC's racist law, a win for democracy.

Continuing the last few posts, I do not dispute the findings of the studies in the New Scientist
article. The meta-analysis of 41 studies admits that those tested were
self-identified as liberal or conservative. While overall bias was about
the same for both types, it also admitted that some methodological
features moderated the overall bias, as well as it being modified by
different political topics.

Using the topic of climate science as one topical example, this Pew
study first of all divided up political affiliation into 4 categories:
liberal Dems, conservative Reps, and moderate Dems and moderate Reps.
This is more aligned with Lakoff that some people are biconceptual,
meaning liberal on some issues and conservative on others. Even so, only
55% of liberal Dems think climate scientists use the best available
scientific evidence to support the research. Granted it's the highest %
in that category, but still indicates there's plenty of self-identified
liberal Dems that are not that science-savvy.

There are also some stats on those with scientific knowledge. Dems with
high science knowledge agree that the earth is warming due to human
influence, see scientists as having a firm understanding of climate
change, and trust those scientists about its cause. But Republicans with
high science knowledge are no more or less likely to agree with those
statements. Their ideology trumps science.

It's also interesting to see how scientists identify politically in this Pew study. What does this tell us?

In the Meetup ground from the last post, this New Scientist article was cited claiming both liberals and conservatives equally have the same level of confirmation bias. Indeed, liberals are dismissive of conservative claims on gun control,
climate change and abortion because liberals present the scientific
facts on those issues. To call that confirmation bias on the same order
as conservative explanations for those same issues is ludicrous.

And of course we must differentiate educated liberals from ignorant
ones. There are plenty of ignorant people that identify as liberals who
are more prone to confirmation bias. But where are the progressive ideas
coming from?

We must make moral value judgments about what's better for society. We
decided that slavery was antithetical to a democracy as but one
example. Another is that an authoritarian regime is antithetical to a
democracy. Another is that implementing climate science is better for
the very survival of the human species than continuing fossil fuel use.
It's fair game to do so when comparing liberal and conservative world
views, using science, of course. Science itself must make these value
judgments instead of sitting idly on the sidelines.

Yes, there is plenty of woo woo on the liberal side, like anti-vacination, anti-GMO and far out conspiracy theories. It too has its confirmation biases. But I or others in this Meetup 'in-group' have yet to espouse that sort
of liberal nonsense. Our focus is supporting our claims with science. So
yes, in that sense we are biased toward the scientific method of
validation, but that's a good thing. And no, I've seen scientific
studies that show liberals are indeed more open to changing their
confirmation bias when presented with new facts and evidence.

Sunday, May 14, 2017

This talk makes clear that Lakoff espouses progressive values because they are the foundation of democracy. Without them we do not have democracy. Conservative values are all about authoritarianism, oligarchy and control via the elimination of democracy. While framing is important, what is even more important is to what framing is applied. This is a very real battle to save democracy from irreparable damage, if not outright extinction from the US.

Because it does things that T-Swamp and the Republicans say can't work, yet it does better than any other US State and most countries. It's a living testament to progressive policies that make a better life for most of its citizens. E.g., it is 1/7 of the US GDP. "Much of the U.S. growth can be traced to California laws promoting clean
energy, government accountability and protections for undocumented
people." See the article for many details on CA performance. The Swamp should learn from success, but that would require they are capable of learning. We've seen that they are not.

Zembla produced this investigative report and went where no US news organization dares to go. It details T-Swamp's financial ties to Russian oligarchs and mafia. Why haven't we heard any of this from US media? Please circulate far and wide.

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Continuing this post, in
this paper Greene describes the dual-process brain, the fast automatic
setting and the slower manual mode. From the conclusion:

"Our
brains, like all complex functional systems, face a tradeoff between
efficiency and flexibility. To promote efficiency, our brains have
point-and-shoot automatic settings in the form of intuitive emotional
responses. These are marvelous, but nonetheless limited in what they can
do. In particular, we should not expect them to perform well in the
face of peculiarly modern problems, ones with which we have inadequate
genetic, cultural, and individual experience. Many of the most important
moral problems we face may be of this kind" (48).

I'd suggest climate change is but one of those challenges. And it will only be obstructed by those science-denying conservative automatons instead of acknowledged and addressed. If we don't do the later via those manual mode scientists we very likely will not have a human future whatsoever. And that ain't no hyperbolic automatic exaggeration but hard scientific fact. And oh yeah, a moral judgment based thereon.

They discuss the difference between democracy and authoritarianism. We are fast losing the former and even faster degenerating into the latter. And the T-Swamp is larger responsible for that acceleration.